Suhaib Webb – Imam alSuyuti’s Introduction to Orthodox Sufism Part One
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The speakers discuss the importance of balance between over authoritarian and overly sheikh in Islam, the need for fresh oxygen in the blood of the um eligves, the importance of practicality in preparing students for the future, and the importance of striping the heart from things that would come between them and Allah. They also discuss the definition of "naive," which relates to the heart and the inner and outer states of the heart, and the importance of knowing before action and following expiration of expiration. The speakers emphasize the importance of mindful living a purpose-driven life for God, and provide examples of practical Sufism.
AI: Summary ©
I hope everybody is doing well. Just a
few housekeeping questions. Sharif, if I share my
screen, will people be able to see my
screen?
That's a question.
Yes, sir. Okay. Awesome. So inshallah, what we're
going to do is go through a course
together. I I know that many of us
are feeling a lot of stress,
the need for community is real, You know,
nothing reveals the need for each other like
being kept away from things that perhaps we've
taken for granted for so long. And this
coronavirus is impacting, of course, a large number
of people
in the world and in New Jersey, and
we ask Allah to
protect us, Insha'Allah and others, and we ask
Allah for those who may have been,
infected by this virus, that Allah will protect
them and make the cure,
quickly
quickly.
So,
my friend Sharif actually asked me to sit
with everybody and read,
once a week, text Insha'Allah.
So I've been preparing the text and you
have to forgive me, that's why I'm I'm
a little bit late
getting here.
But this is a text that I thought
we could read together really on, practical.
Oftentimes, we find tesauwuf being posited in the
community in different ways. 1 is perhaps making
the focus of tesauwuf the religious leader
or the group and not really the focus
of tasawaf which should be Allah.
Or we find people completely rejecting tasawaf as
being an innovation,
as something which is, you know, contrary,
contradicting the Quran and sunnah.
So what I thought we would do is
read a very very important book that creates
this balance
between
over authoritarian
to sof or overly sheikh focused to sof
to, Tisauaf, which is focused on Allah, and
the other side where people are rejecting and
completely dismissing,
Tasawwuf. And this is a book called Itma'amudirayalikira'a
nikaya
of Sayyidina wa imamana
asiuti,
Imam Assiuti lived in the 10th century after
Hijri. He was of Turkish descent,
but he was born, of course, in Assiut
which is in Sayyid Masr in in in
Egypt, and Masha'Allah, he was one of the
great great great later scholars,
he was known as Khatim al Khafad, you
can see it here, which means the last
person that was known to memorize around the
million Hadith.
He was also known as Ahlamah, which means
that he mastered,
most of the sciences, and it's very difficult
to find the science in Islam that Imam
Asiyuti did not write on,
subhanAllah, and did not have a major influence
on Rahim
His beginnings are very profound,
and I think there's something that can be
said for how institutions,
their attitude towards young people. I gave a
lecture today about the future of Islam and
Muslims in America after corona, and one of
them is that we have to have a
long term
sustainability
plan when it comes to engaging young people
and keeping the elders. We see like 1
of 2. Right? Elders don't want young people
involved,
young people wanna take power.
Both of those are very myopic, they lack
nuance, and they're not very intelligent or reasonable.
What we should think about is a strategy
which
honors and respects the elders of the community
who have done so much great work. For
example, like Sheikh Shibley,
in your community, someone who's like 40 years
of service to the Muslim community, some of
the elders who help build,
the masjid and fund and support the masjid.
And then secondly, also recognizes that we do
need fresh oxygen in the blood of the
ummah, so creates this unique relationship between the
youth and the elders that neither feels threatened,
but both understand
their strategic importance and where they are best
inserted.
With this is really how Imam Asiuti, his
life
starts. You know that an elder was wise
enough and had such foresight by the will
of Allah to see that, you know, this
young person had potential.
He was intimidated
by the rigor of the youth. He was
invigorated by Imam Assayuti, and that was Imam
ibn Hajar al Asqalani,
Rahim Muhullah. Imam ibn Hajar died 856 Hijriya.
Imam Assiuti dies 9 11, Hijriya.
And Imam Assiuti, he was actually an orphan.
So he was poor and he used to
live those of you from Egypt, he used
to live in the area of Sayid al
Zaynab,
and he would
quite frequent
quite frequently be taken to what's known as
which is one of the largest masjids in
the world, subhanallah. It's massive
in Cairo.
And his uncles would take him there, and
he would play during the prayers and play
during the lectures, he was a child.
And one day, Imam, ibn Hajar, Rahimahullah,
he was teaching and he saw this little
child playing, you know, and he said, what
did they eat? Like, who's this kid?
And they said, that ibn Sayyuti,
that is the son of a Suyuti, the
orphan.
And instead of getting angry
and throwing a Suyuti out of the masjid,
Sayidna Imam ibn Hajar Sahib al Fathilbari,
he said,
I see something in this child.
So I give this child all of the
Ijazat and Hadith and Asaneed and Hadith that
I possess.
SubhanAllah. And what's interesting later on in life,
Imam Asiyuti, he used to be proud of
this fact, and he would say to his
contemporaries like, I have the Asani directly
to Ibn Hajir, like there's no one between
me and him because
Ajazani, he gave me Ijazah when I was
a kid. So, there's like a really, really
beautiful story as we begin to talk about
this text that Imam al Sayyuti doesn't come
out of a vacuum.
He comes out of a structure, out of
a system. So as we look at the
coronavirus and as we're all forced
to stop doing what we normally do, perhaps
we can ask ourselves as imams, as teachers,
I say to imams all the time, if
you're really a good imam, you have 5
students.
You have 5 people that you're preparing for
the service of the community in the future.
It's not about you.
It's not about your your fan club. It's
about who are you preparing for the future?
Who are those students that you have around
you? So Sayna imam a c o t
does not come out of a vacuum. The
book that we're going to be reading is
called Ittma'am ul Direayah liqirah and yakayah, which
actually is a book that he wrote where
he collected,
all the information about different sciences, and he
theorized about what these sciences were pedagogy, if
you will, and and what should be used
to teach
these sciences. He touches on everything from
to even things like mathematics,
medicine,
engineering,
geography.
He doesn't leave any stone unturned,
He
was a polymath, and the later part of
his book is directed
to towards what's known as practical
practical tasawaf. So inshallah, we're gonna spend the
next few
weeks, reading this text together, and this hasn't
been edited, so I ask that you please
kinda keep it to yourself.
I sent the links to Sharif and Umaimah
for the first part of our lesson, and
then we'll, I will add to this and
continue to add parts of the lesson as
we go insha'Allah.
So Imam Assiyuti, after Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim Alhamdulillah,
was salatu wa salamu 'alaseedin Rasulillah,
he begins by defining atasawuf,
and he says, tajreeduqalbili
lahi ta'ala wahtiqaru
masiwa.
And actually,
this is not the definition of sayna Imam
Asiuti.
This is the definition of Imam al Ghazari
Rahim o Allahu ta'ala. Tajreed
or kalb, which means to strip the heart
for Allah.
And what that means here is to strip
the heart of unhealthy attachments,
to strip the heart from things that would
come between
us and Allah,
subhanahu wa ta'ala, to be disciplined.
This doesn't mean to be irresponsible, but it
means to put things in the right order.
Allah says that your spouses and your kids
can be a trial for you. Most definitely
if we allow our spouses and our children
to come be before us and god,
to come before us in what's foundational in
our relationship with Allah.
Allah says, but the good that you do,
the good deeds you do, which are gonna
last forever, that's better for you and better
with your Lord. So when he says,
to strip the heart for the sake of
Allah, he doesn't mean to become irresponsible.
What he means is to strip it from
unhealthy attachments.
So, for example, someone watches Netflix till 4
o'clock in the morning and misses Fajr, that's
an unhealthy attachment.
Someone hangs out with their friends and plays
basketball till they miss
that's an unhealthy attachment. So what he means
is
to strip the heart of those unhealthy attachments
sincerely for Allah
and then to debase everything else except Allah,
meaning not to neglect it again, but to
see everything else as secondary
in our relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
How I wrote this text for you is
that I'll mention one of the statements of
Sayana Imam Sayyuti, and then I'm explaining it
here. So where it says explanation,
these are my words. This definition is the
definition of Imam al Ghazari, not Imam Asyuti.
In fact, there are actually some scholars that
have a problem with this definition, and maybe
if you think about it, you'll be like,
yeah, this definition is a little too intense.
So there are other definitions that are
more precise
and,
more balanced
than the definition of Imam Al Ghazari. You
know, even the people of Tasawwuf, and this
doesn't take anything away from Imam Al Ghazari,
nobody is above criticism, and that's, again, as
I alluded to earlier,
a dangerous side of tasawaf is where a
sheikh or a teacher is above criticism.
That is not tasawaf, that's being part of
a cult.
But Imam Al Ghazari, he's like any other
human being, he's a great academic, he's a
great scholar, but he can make mistakes, subhanAllah.
So there were scholars that were critical of
this definition
because they felt it was too intense,
and it took people maybe into an area
of neglecting
their responsibilities.
So let's share a few definitions of tasauwuf
which are perhaps more precise and more balanced.
So one definition is, and this is mentioned
by Sheikh Zakaria Ansari,
great scholar,
There should be a zai here.
I'm gonna edit while we talk.
This actually is a really nice definition that
says atasawaf
is the knowledge of the states of the
heart. So what do I fear? What do
I love? My attachments
And the purification
of the outer character.
What they mean by the outer character is,
you know, am I a liar?
Am I honest?
Do I backbite people? Am I physically harming
people? So oppression would fall under this. Right?
Physical abuse, emotional abuse would fall under
vahir and albatein,
actually there's two sciences for these. The vahir
implies your physical acts. So the science which
governs the vahir is called fiqh.
Albatim
implies the internal state of a person, the
ahwal of a person, and this is called
tasawaf. So I want you to remember something.
The here deals with what? And
what what and I may I think I
can actually type on this. It's pretty cool.
Check this out.
Oh,
here we go.
So, va here
implies
your actions,
and the science
that deals with that is Filk, jurisprudence.
Balatin
implies
your heart and your nafs,
and
what comes
implies your actions, implies your heart and your
nafs,
and the word for what goes on in
your heart and your nafs is.
The word that that addresses fiqh is Afal
or
Amal,
and I'll put the translations here. Amal,
meaning your deeds, your outer deeds, like your
prayer, your Zakat, your Hajj, Ahwal is the
states
or conditions
of your heart.
Alhamdulillah. We use this at NYU,
so it's pretty easy. So that should be
conditions.
Let me see if it will let me
edit.
So I want you to look at this
definition and the point I'm trying to make
is very important that
you want to understand that when scholars talk
about the this means your outer acts.
When they talk about the Baalatin, this means
the states of your heart and your nafs.
The science that deals with this is filk.
The science that deals with the inner, the
ahuwal,
is tasaluf.
This is very important,
and this will solve a lot of problems
that we have especially after kind of the
influence of the anti,
Tasolwify movements and also some of the crazy
stuff we see in some people in the
name of Tsof do,
right? But remember this, that
the va here is dealt with fiqh and
that deals with outer actions, the corporal.
Okay?
The deals with the inner states of your
heart, the ahwal. So the science for the
here is fiqh. The science for the is
and here you can see how Islam marries
both together very beautifully, and that's why the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, now you can
appreciate the hadith if you think about it,
when the prophet says
every action is by the state of the
heart. So that hadith
marries the inner and the outer
So this definition is
that this is the knowledge which teaches us
about the states of the soul, how to
purify our character, and how to preserve
the outer and the inner to achieve
everlasting
happiness in the hereafter, Masha'Allah.
Imam Al Qosairi,
Masha'Allah.
Imam Al Qosairi is
what Imam Malik is to fiqh
because if you think about what I said
earlier that deals with the and deals with
the well just like has
Tasawaf has madhabs.
And one of the great imams of Tasawaf
is Imam al Qosairi.
And he says,
Masha'Allah.
What a definition.
He said that tasav is to embrace every
noble character
while avoiding some of the unruly characteristics.
That takes us now to a discussion that
we have to deal with because largely of
the Saudi state's propagation
as well as sell out Sufis
and people who represent Tassoulaf in a bad
way. You know, you see sometimes videos of
people stabbing themselves and, you know, hanging themselves
upside down. I remember I had a friend
one time, his uncle,
he went to someone who was quote unquote
a Sufi and he told him to go
live in a grave for 90 days and
his his uncle actually went, insane.
So there's a lot to be said about
this, but if we think about tasawaf as
a science,
any science, whether it's fiqh, you're gonna have
the good, the bad, and the ugly. Right?
Within fiqh, you had people historically who who
believed only in literalism.
Within fiqh, you had people outside of Orthodoxy
who believed that everything has to be interpreted.
In fact, Al Bhataniyah said, There is no
word
in the Quran or Hadith of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam, except it has a hidden
meaning. And if anybody interprets the literal meaning,
they have left Islam. That's horrible. Right? So
within any science, the point I'm trying to
make is you're always gonna have the good,
the bad, and the ugly. We need to
be nuanced,
right? We need to think deeply. So within
tasoolaf, you're going to find the good, the
bad and the ugly. How do we judge
good is by its adherence, a person's adherence
to the Quran and Sunnah.
SubhanAllah. Now we can see the potential to
maybe heal the divide
between certain types of Salafism
in certain types of Sufism, where they may
not agree, but at least their general reference
is the sacred text as Allah says in
the Quran
then return to Allah the Quran and his
messenger Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So this is a
question that people ask a lot is to
Abida.
So it's common to hear people claim that
such and such thing is an innovation, especially
amongst converts
and new Muslims and people who have not
studied very much. I remember SubhanAllah and Al
Azhar when I was there
some years ago,
I I I I I remember something really
funny
that,
in the 1st year, you'd find people arguing
all the time.
And, I remember one time, one of our
senior students, he said to one of the
younger guys who was always arguing, he said,
you must be a 1st year student. And
he said, why? I said, because 1st year
students is all they do. All they do
is argue. But as I I progressed in
my studies, I noticed that the that the
arguments were less,
and that if arguments happen, they were much
more meaningful and impactful.
Different schools and studied what's going on,
we need to be careful of what I
call religious passion.
Oftentimes, people think that experiences
or religious passion
is equivalent to scholarship, but that's not the
case. So it's very common to hear, like,
people who are really, really passionate and they
love Islam,
but oftentimes their passion and their love, if
misused
can cause hate.
If their passion and love, if misused,
can actually cause people to lose confidence.
And that's why I shared this this statement
of Abu Taib al Mutanabbi, one of the
great poets of Islamic history.
He said, you know, in these lines warning
against placing abrupt emotions before knowledge and expertise,
and we live now in an age, especially
because of Donald Trump,
where people no longer respect expertise.
People go to WebMD instead of listening to
a doctor.
Peep people
tend to ignore expertise because there's an arrogance
to this age, which is very unhealthy. The
same thing happens in religion,
that people tend to think that their passion,
their personal story, their personal narrative, how Allah
saved them from evil, their conversion,
their repentance,
is somehow equivalent
to expertise
and qualifying themselves
in a scholarly way, and that's a disaster.
So look at what Mutanabbi says. He says,
We should be teaching this to our kids.
We should have classes on Arabic literature and
in Urdu and Persian literature,
in our in our Islamic schools. He said
to think
before bravery is to think twice.
To, like, think and and be
intellectually
astute
before you act on bravery is 2 braveries.
So the first step is to think and
the second step then to follow that
is to be brave, is to act, and
this can apply to any emotion like,
you know, you know, to to think before
you love is 2 loves.
To think before you hate is 2 hates.
What he's saying is do not allow yourself
to give in to the emotional impulse.
That emotion is not enough to validate
something being correct. Knowledges.
In in, Harvard Kennedy, when I was there
in Boston, they had this interesting study in
the business school there because remember when president
Bush, he used to say, like, he goes
with his gut. So there was a person
who actually did a study.
How many times have people who gone with
their gut succeeded? Most of the time they
lost. And you find this sometimes even though
Muslims, they'll make istikhara, and then they'll say,
you know, I just have this feeling that
this is wrong,
and then it doesn't work out for them.
That's not istikhara. Istikhara means to try and
see what happens, right? Because if I'm always
going off how I feel, this is masking
a dangerous form of hubris and narcissism.
So we have to be careful, even in
the name of religion, just because you have
a passionate story and a passionate moment,
that does not,
by any means,
justify
nor validate
the correctness of your opinion.
So he says,
So if a person
is able to acquire in this context
bravery, and we have to remember that he's
praising so
if,
is praising a king, but he's
saying
that if both of these are found in
a person,
that that person will achieve complete success, if
they're able to marry
being qualified
with passion. Now what happens oftentimes
as a former imam in the community,
I would have to say that the majority
of damage done to partitioners and community members
was done by passionate religious
people who were not able to nuance their
passion with common sense. We see this now,
ulama after ulama have said, don't go to
the mosque, don't go to the mosque, don't
go to the mosque. There are so many
a hadith, there are so many principles that
justify
not going to the mosque, and the governments
are telling people not to go to the
mosque. And recently I just read yesterday that
in a city in Europe, the Muslims were
going to the mosque even after the government
told them not to end their and imams
told them not to. And it's in that
neighborhood
that the coronavirus
is now spreading amongst the Muslim.
In the name of passion,
great harm can happen.
So oftentimes,
I found that people in the name of
passion, unbridled passion, doctor Cornel West calls it
righteous indignation,
like to say that everything is a bitter
usually in innovation because they don't know it.
But there's a very, very beautiful axiom.
In Islam, we have what's called the
science of research and discussion,
And this was taught in, in Elzhar until
1983, Lil Asaf Shaddid. But still we read
this with the shuh alhamdulillah.
And there is a great principle that says,
like you not knowing something doesn't make it
truth.
Al jahlu layufidu
al adam.
Ignorance does not mean that something doesn't exist.
So just because I may not know something,
I'm not that special,
doesn't mean that it's not there.
So oftentimes people think something is an innovation
or a bida either because of unbridled religious
passion
or I never heard that before. I never
heard that. Oh, who are you? Like the,
are you a So,
subhanAllah, we find in the Quran this important
step of learning
before we act on emotion
and learning before we act.
Allah says in the 47th chapter verse 19
after
Allah says that you must know
what is
and then seek forgiveness.
Imam Al Bukhari was such a genius. He
put this in the Sahi under the chapter
knowing before you act. Some of our scholars
used to say,
right? That knowledge is the father and action
is the offspring.
You know, to know
is the tree and the actions are the
fruit. You can have the cart before the
horse, you can have the fruit before the
tree.
Sufyan ibn Uyayna, who was one of the
greatest scholars, Masha'Allah,
was asked about the fuddle,
the virtue of knowledge. And he said, have
you not heard
the words of Allah when he proceeds with
an order to learn
the verse that we just quoted, you must
know
and then seek forgiveness.
He says, thus, he ordered
an action after the acquisition of knowledge and
have you not heard Allah says,
Have you not heard that Allah says you
must know that this temporary life is nothing
but play and jest until he says,
after all that, then
seek the forgiveness of your lord. So knowing
proceeds seeking forgiveness.
And he says, and haven't you heard also
heard that Allah says,
that indeed your family and your property can
be a trial for you. Then he says,
then be careful, then act. And Allah Subhanahu
Wa
Ta'ala
says,
Know that anything that you have attained from
the
spoils
of
war, then a 5th of it belongs to
Allah, his messenger, and so on and so
forth. So knowledge before action is a foundational
principle
found in the Quran. So before we say
something is we better make sure that we
didn't just hear a lecture somewhere
because usually people speaking, if they don't give
you the whole position, that means they're just
reflecting their philosophy. They're gonna have a myopic
view. But did you do the research before
you go to someone and censor them?
You have to be very careful because one
of the greatest biddas is
as Allah says in the Quran that you
involve yourself in something that you don't know
that you speak about something that you don't
know. The term and
some of this I did not have time
to translate, so you have to forgive me.
I will, InshaAllah, bring the translations as well
as the citations for you, InshaAllah. He says
the word Bida is from bada
which means invention. The word bidah is from
a word which means to create something without
precedent or an example.
So he says invention
in the linguistic meaning is to create something
without precedent or an example,
In the context of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
we know that Allah, his name is Al
Badiyyah,
the originator. Badiyyah
The originator of the hems and the earth
means that he created those things without any
type of precedent or need.
He caused the material to come from nothing.
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Then he wrote, he's
talking about Sadat al Shafi'i,
and he says because Imam Rahi Ibrahim Hola,
he was Shafi. He says in the word
according to the
that it is to present an idea here
he used the word statement which is not
rooted in the sunnah of the prophet
or to initiate an action
which is not in line with the actions
of
Sayidna Muhammad
or those people who preceded you
or it's not rooted in the foundations of
Islam.
So here, Imam Sayna Ararghib al Asfahani
defines albida
is something that does not have a source
in the Quran in sunnah,
a source of precedent in the practice of
the early Muslims
or is not supported
implicitly or explicitly
by sacred texts.
This is built on further by Imam Ibn
Athir. Imam Ibn Athir is one of the
greatest scholars of hadith in history. He wrote
a book called An Nihayat, 4 volumes. It
is a definition,
a dictionary of all the words found in
hadith.
Like the majority of the words found in
a hadith, subhanAllah, 4 volumes.
He also wrote
a text which collects all of the hadith
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, which are
super important.
The one version I have is 22 volumes.
He also wrote a book on history,
more than 20 volumes, Rahim Muhallahu Ta'ala. And
he in his dictionary,
almihayyah, defines,
he says,
you know, one of the names of Allah
is Al Badia, the originator.
As I said earlier, he said that Al
Badia is the one who creates and originates
without any precedents or equal or likeness before
it. So when Allah says,
I'm gonna create in the earth a Khalifa,
the angels.
They had no idea.
They had no idea because something like this
has never been seen before in the material
world, in the so
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
Then he adds something very important
while commenting on the statement of Sayyidina Umar
We know that Sayyidina
that in his time people were praying taraweeh
in scattered groups.
So he brought them all together for 1
jama'ah
and as they began to pray in 1
jama'ah, he said,
He said like this is the best Bida.
So commenting on this hadith, this statement, excuse
me, this Athar of Sayna Amr ibn Khattab,
Imam Ibn Athir, he says
that There are 2 types of and this
is the opinion of the majority of Sunni
theologians and scholars.
The minority which took the opinion of Imam
Malik even though his have differed with him,
in the opinion of the Imam Ibn Taymiyyah
and Imam Ibn Hazam and others.
They were of the opinion that
every is wrong.
The majority of the Ulama from Ahlus Sunnah
as mentioned by Imam at the habih who
called saydna imama shafi'i.
They
divided bida into bida hasana
in bida sayya or bida mad mumah in
bida,
al Mahmuda. I understand that this is controversial,
but my job here is just to present
history. You can go and do the research
for yourself.
But look what Sayna Imam Ibnu'ath here, he
says,
He said there are 2 types of religious
innovation,
a
innovation which is is leading to guidance
and an innovation which leads to being astray.
And then he says, so whatever
contradicts
what Allah has commanded and the messenger sallallahu
alaihi wasallam,
then that should be refuted
and it should be rejected.
And here is this definition
that we see now.
And that this is the difference that you
find amongst different groups in the Sunni community
today. Imam ibn Athir is going to take
the position of Imam al Shafi and the
majority who say,
Whoever
does something which falls under the generality
of what Allah has encouraged,
and the messenger, sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
fahuwafi
hayiz al mad, then that is something that
should be praised.
The minority of scholars, and I mentioned them,
and this is where you find, the Salafi
Med Hab today,
following that minority, so we should understand that
they follow something that has support, that you
don't have to go off and
and declare them as evil. This is also
ridiculous. Right? But we should be honest and
say this is the minority of Sunni ulema.
Don't don't try to present this as the
as the majority. This was always the minority
opinion,
but the majority opinion say that something that
falls under what's called
means under a general
implicit
good,
then that is considered praiseworthy.
And here again,
he continues to expand on this idea of
good, which is not explicitly
found
in the text
or even amongst the early Muslims.
And that's why Imam Al Shafi'i said, Whoever
thinks that every good that occurs in religion
had to be done by the early Muslims
is foolish. He said this in
And oftentimes we find people saying, well, the
prophet didn't do it, the Sahaba didn't do
it, subhanAllah, that statement
goes against a foundational principle in
I'm gonna write this for you because this
is important. And I want us to understand
that what you're doing with me now is
a class. This is not like a motivational
talk.
That a talk,
lisa
What does that mean?
That not doing something
is a proof,
meaning the Prophet SAW and the Sahab.
I will give you an example of this,
In Sahih Bukhari, when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam was offered lizard to eat,
he didn't eat it. Is it Haram to
eat lizard?
It's not Haram. So
just because the prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam didn't
do it is not a hudjah. There are
conditions for this that we can study maybe
together in Ulsul Ufilk. But when people say
this, the only thing that they exhibit is
their ignorance of Ulsul and the depth of
Sharia. Or the prophet didn't do it. The
Sahaba didn't
do
it.
According to the majority, not the minority.
According to the minority,
in some situations,
not all the situations. So so the sheikh,
he says,
whatever there is that did not have a
previous example,
like doing good
and and things which are recognized as being
good that do not contradict a sacred text,
then these are
considered
praiseworthy
things.
And of course now he mentions a condition
that it would not be allowed for these
things if of course they were to contradict,
the sacred law, if they were to contradict,
Sharia,
then of course that would be a problem.
So also he's actually saying something else that
these general good things are not gonna be
contradicted to the Sharia, excuse me,
because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam he said here
Then whoever starts a good sunnah will share
in the reward of those who follow.
Just as if someone starts something evil,
then they will share in the reward of
those who follow them in that evil. The
point the sheikh is saying is that good,
good that falls under the general guidelines of
Sharia.
For example, if someone wants to do a
fantasy football, instead of them gambling,
they say, you know what? We're gonna do
fantasy football
and
the the the the earnings that come from
it, none of us are gonna win it.
We're gonna give it to charity. That's not
a biddah because that falls under sadaqa, the
generality of.
If some sisters wanna do a bake sale
and they say whatever we sell, we're gonna
give to, no one should tell them this
is because it falls under the general idea
of what?
Of sadaqa, of charity. This is what he
means by
but the the refutation of something is
if it goes against
the generality of the sacred test or explicitly
the sacred text. Other examples of this in
the time of the prophet
when the person was praying behind Sayyidina Nabi
and
and someone,
sneezed and he said, you're hamak Allah.
Or when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he
came from and
the bed one behind him
said Afterwards the Prophet didn't say who made
this bidah?
Who said this because thikr is a general
thing?
And he said, it was me, Oh Messenger
of Alaihi Wasallam, I saw the angels fighting
to see who could write this for you.
When the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam came to
say Nabilah radiAllahu anhu and he asked him,
why is it that I hear your footsteps
in Jannah?
And he said, every time I make, I
pray
whatever Allah has written for me or my.
The Prophet then told him, this is because
Salat and nafila falls under a general khair,
a general good. So the point that we're
making here is that just because you don't
know something or or I don't know something
or just because I'm passionate or you're passionate,
I need to make sure that what I'm
telling someone is
is.
And if there's a difference of opinion on
it, then I don't say it's bida. I
say it's something that people differ over. Now
that takes us to and
and and we don't have time to read
all this, but this section here is very
important
because this woman
You know, he says that the example of
what had no previous example
is what Sayna Umar did when he brought
the people together because the unity of the
Muslims
falls under a general principle,
a general principle. But that takes us to
and if we look at the science of
we see that does the idea of purifying
our heart, working on ourselves, becoming better people,
improving our character,
being closer to Allah, is that supported by
the sacred text?
Allah says indeed succeeded successful is the one
who purified the heart.
Quran says that hearts are blind. The prophet
that in the heart, there's a piece of
flesh. If it sound the whole body sound,
if it's corrupt, the whole body's corrupted, it's
the heart. So is there support for the
idea of?
The second thing, and this is not in
the text, this is FYI for you as
people say, well, this name, you know, the
name is
You know, we have an axiom in the
etiquettes of debate and discussion that names don't
fall under.
Actions fall under Bidah and
it's beliefs fall under Bidah, not names.
In fact, Imam
Ibrahim mentioned 6 conditions for something to be
considered its name Bidah.
That's why we have a very important axiom
that says,
I can write it here for you, if
it's gonna let me.
What does that mean?
Oh, super important axiom.
Which means there is
no arguing
over terms.
Convert, revert, people fight over this convert, revert,
you're a convert, you're a revert, what a
waste of time, man? Well, lahi, this tells
you how pathetic an ummah is that all
they can do is argue over names.
It can argue over names because that's is
that the last bastion of power to argue
over terms? That's why the scholars protected it
from us. They said,
Another axiom that you wanna learn,
Wow, I'm getting old.
Look at this axiom,
concern
is for
the meaning,
not the name.
Why? Because debating over the names is foolishness,
like when sometimes you meet an Islam form,
they're like, you know, Muslims, Islam, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, you get to ask
them, what does Islam mean to you? Islam
means to kill, to blow up, blah, blah,
blah. Tell them that's not what Islam is.
Start from there, don't start with a name,
start with the meaning. Now we see one
of the problems of the hyper left, is
they're arguing over terms, not the meaning of
terms. So they find themselves constantly splintering in
divisions, divisions, divisions, divisions, divisions.
Instead of arguing over the name,
argue over what the name means.
So what that means is you can call
it Tasawaf, you can call it,
you can call it
whatever you want to call it, nobody cares.
What do you mean by it?
So
Tajweed, the word Aqeeda, it came later on.
Should ask brothers, this is a bidah, the
name to so what about the name Aqeeda?
So the point is names,
SubhanAllah, don't matter. What matters is
the meaning
of
what you are saying,
what you
are saying
So sorry, I'm gonna have to take,
the chat questions and stuff later because I'm
trying to
kind of do this at the same time,
so
sorry about
that. And we have quite a bit to
cover, so Shareef, you can let me know
when you need me to stop
but I'm in it to win it, you
know, you know me, I'm gonna keep going
because we have a lot to cover. But
the point that I wanted to make before
we even start the book is,
number 1 is
that, Tasulof
has a definition.
Number 2 is that it is supported by
text implicitly and explicitly,
and then number 3 is
names don't matter generally, and number 4 is
passion is not enough to equate to excellence
to excellence.
Now, let's start the book and
and let's let's begin because sometimes these things
can be very intimidating, right? And especially with
some of the and some of the who
are treated like, you know, superheroes.
This makes it a bigger problem because what
happens is you put this religious guru between
you and God. You know, many of us
left Christianity because there was something between us
and God. And we have to realize that
any trika or any sheikh who talks about
the sheikh more than God is a problem,
or talks about the sheikh as though the
sheikh can't make any mistakes, you should run,
you should run. Because
Tasso is about being vulnerable with God as
a community so that we can become better
people. It's not about creating
a popularity contest or a fan club that's
a problem, and that's what I love about
the book of Sayna Imam Asiyuti, rahimohullah.
This is applicable,
practical,
measurable to.
What are the first steps in starting to
live a purpose driven life or a life
for God? The sheikh, he
says,
He says, then if you understand this and
you
believe that
if you believe that is to strip your
heart of everything except God and to debase
things which are unhealthy attachments, then he said,
then,
if you understand this well, be mindful of
Allah
in every situation.
How to do that? First of all, that's
impossible, right? So, this is an example of
hyperbole,
but what he means is do your best
to be mindful of Allah,
to live your life as though you see
God.
And how do you do this? And here's
the first
step,
and this is a spelling error here, that
you should begin
by being mindful of Allah in all your
situations
by
establishing
the obligations.
So the first step in all of this
is to establish obligatory.
Imam Junit,
one of the Imams of Sufism said,
The Our Way
is based on the book in
Whoever doesn't write the Quran and hadith
and he said, even if you see a
person flying in the sky,
do not follow that person until you see
how they act
with the Quran and sunnah.
So, the first is start with the obligatory
and now,
this virus
allows us to work on our own viruses.
How many of us we miss Fajr today?
How many of us we missed
or How many of us we weren't nice
to our kids or to our spouses?
Start with the obligations. That's the first step.
Then
leave.
Let me try to fix fix this if
I can.
Then
and leave
the prohibited. So that's the first step. These
are like 2 wings in the path to
Allah
to observe
obedience
and to limit disobedience.
That's it. It's nothing spooky about it. It's
very practical. What's halal is halal, what's haram
is haram, what's wajib is wajib, what's makru
is makru, and here you see the marriage
of fiqh and tasoo,
the outer and the inner that we talked
about early.
So he says start by establishing the obligations,
leaving the forbidden,
and then work on the voluntary acts and
leaving the things which are disliked. So, imam
assiuti
Rahim Muhullah
lays down, in just a few words,
the way
to Allah.
Obedience,
avoiding the prohibited,
then after that, working on the voluntary acts
of good,
and then the 4th, avoiding the disliked.
So he says, so if you understood that
well, what is then
be mindful of Allah in every situation
by observing the obligations,
avoiding the prohibited, and then establishing the voluntary
acts
while reducing this dislike. This is not complicated
stuff, man.
Explanation,
to be mindful of Allah is to observe
him in all situations,
and that is done by observing the halal
and the haram, to live a life as
though I see Allah.
Sometimes people get caught in like
the esoteric meaning.
What does it mean to
to worship Allah as though you see him
and I to worship Allah as though I
see him means at those situations,
I make the choice as though Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala is in front of me.
So, I can be an abuser and I
realize Allah has told me not to be
an abuser, so I
refrain from it. I could,
you know, be shady in business, and at
that moment I have an opportunity to be
shady in business,
I realized there's a ruling for that,
so I pull away. So the commitment
to the rules
of Islam
is indicative of someone seeing God. So there's
no
without fiqh,
and there's no fiqh without.
So here you see the marriage between the
two.
So my ability to observe
the limits of God
and the commands of God is indicative of
me living a life for Allah.
So to be And that's why there's a
narration of the Hadith of Jibreel,
where the prophet said, you know, to worship
Allah, though you see him, even though you
can't see him, you know he sees you.
There's another narration,
to act for God as though you see
God,
to refrain
as though you see Allah.
So to be mindful of Allah is to
observe him in all situations. The other thing
that makes this important
is that now I'm not caught on some
kind of cool, like, you know, I feel
so awesome, dude. Like, super spiritual, man. I
ain't prayed in, like, 45 years, but, man,
my how is, like, amazing.
My inner state is just, like, wow.
Man, this ain't a trip to the dispensary,
man.
This is worship.
Nobody can feel greater than the prophet felt
with his Lord. Did he ever miss Salah?
So we cannot separate
the outer from the inner. That's why Imam
That a can live his life without a
but a
Sufi can never live life without a because
the is telling them the outer wrong, right,
wrong, right, wrong, right. So Imam
here in the very beginning, he marries
the relationship between Sharia
and Al Hatiqa and Tazawaf. And at the
end of the day, the final call goes
to the Sharia.
I am subservient
to what Allah has commanded. It ain't about
how I feel. It ain't Shirley MacLaine in
the Santa Cruz Hills smoking weed. It ain't
people playing with crystals out in California.
That has nothing to do with deen.
Deen is about obedience to Allah and that's
the first path. So he says,
start with the obligations
and leaving the Haram
and then the voluntary acts and then the
So the explanation as we finish today,
to be mindful of Allah is to observe
him in all situations
that is done by observing the Halal and
Haram. That is why the prophet said worship
Allah as though you see him even if
you can't, at least you know he sees
you.
Seeing Allah is impossible, but our observing his
commands
are evidence that we see him.
Thus, the first step on the path to
Allah, here's our first step we took today,
brothers and sisters,
is to work hard to establish
the obligations.
Look at this hadith that lays all this
out. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said, verily
Allah ta'ala has said, whoever shows hatred to
a friend of mine, then I have declared
war against that person. And this is the
part,
and my servant does not draw near to
me with anything more love, beloved, should be
beloved to me than the religious
obligations.
This is a bad translation.
So the thing which Allah loves most from
us as we achieve nearness to Allah
by the mercy of Allah
is to obey Allah.
Those duties I have obligated upon him or
her, and my servant continues to draw near
to me with no affluence. So here, my
servant does not draw near to me with
anything more beloved to me than the religious
duties I have obligated means
practices
and leaving them for the impermissible.
Both of those are obligations.
And my servant continues to draw near to
me with nafil,
extra deeds until I love that person, may
Allah make us from those he loves, man.
And when I love that person, I am
his hearing with which he hears, his sight
with which he sees, and his hand with
which he strikes, and his foot with which
he walks, and were he to ask me
of something, I would surely give it to
him, and were he to seek refuge with
me, I would surely grant it to him.
Now, next time insha Allah because this is
real, like I converted to Islam and it
can be a challenge, right? What if you
can't obey Allah? Like, right? There's times where
it's just hard.
So what if I can't? So what would
be the next step? Like, Imam Suyuti is
saying, obey Allah, but I have trouble obeying
Allah.
Then what would be the next step? So
what do we take today? Masha'Allah, as we
as we finish,
this time together, and it's it's been
certainly,
very rewarding and a reminder for me as
well
that
we
took, number 1, that
this idea of tasauwuf has to be framed
in a sense of balance between 2 extremes,
romanticized,
irrational tesauwufism, and then, like,
irresponsible, neglecting, and and rejecting tesauwuf.
The second thing that that we we talked
about is that Tasawaf is rooted, of course,
in
in the sacred law.
Right? It's rooted in Sharia.
It's rooted in in the practices of Islam.
And then we began to talk about how
a tasawoth,
the idea that it's not a
and that it has support. We talked about.
We talked about the different groups that define,
and then we started to talk about the
definition of tasawaf,
and then the first step
in this path to Allah, this practical Sufism
is to establish the obligatory
and to limit the prohibited.
Next time, insha Allahu Ta'ala, we're going to
address the second step. What if I can't
obey Allah?
Like, what if I struggle with that? What
is something else I can do,
that will help me,
you know, on this way.
We can take any questions. For some reason
my
screen is not showing up and I don't
really know why that's happening.
So Shareef, you may have to actually read
Yeah. No problem. The questions to me. Ma'am,
one of the questions,
regarding one of your comments on the side
there
was,
not doing something is a proof. Is this
a typo? That was the question.
That the prophet not doing something, that is
not a proof,
and the example that I gave earlier
was, and remember I'm typing and talking at
the same time, so I'm not a multitasker,
and I have a 9 month, 10 month
old baby, which means I have daddy brain,
But the prophet not doing something is not
a proof, according to the majority of Sunni
scholars of.
And the example I gave is he didn't
eat the lizard. Is is that a proof
that the lizard is haram?
No, because they continue to eat in front
of him.
I think that's all that's all we have.
Does anybody else have any other questions? Let
me just give them one minute, please.